Frequently Asked Questions

Keylime Tools - General

How flexible is Keylime Tools if some data is unavailable?

It's rare that data isn't available from the data sources Keylime Tools pulls from. However, if data isn't available for a particular day from Google Webmaster Tools or Google Analytics, Keylime Tools recovers any missing data the next day.

Does Keylime Tools show trended ranking data for each query?

Keylime Tools is built around query segments to provide insight on the big picture for your site.

Should I be concerned about the privacy of my data with Keylime Toolbox?

Keylime Toolbox is built with privacy in mind. No personally identifiable customer information is stored (Google Webmaster Tools provides only anonymous aggregated data). Your data is hosted on secure Amazon Web Services and Blue Box systems and all data is behind a secure login.

Our site is small and we don’t get much search traffic. Will Keylime Tools be able to provide value to us?

Keylime Tools is valuable as long as the site is getting enough search traffic for Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to report it.

Our site is huge and we get tons of search traffic. Google Analytics only provides sampled data. Will Keylime Tools be able to provide value to us?

Keylime Tools was built to scale and can process any number of queries. Keylime Tools pulls data directly from the Google Analytics API, which generally avoids any sampling issues. Google Webmaster Tools provides only top queries, but by aggregating and de-duplicating subfolder data, Keylime Tools can provide substantially more detail than is available in Google Webmaster Tools directly. In addition, since Keylime Tools provides data and trends based on query segments rather than individual queries (and estimates total traffic for each segment), the reports provide significant big picture trends and insights.

Keylime Tools - Google Webmaster Tools

How granular is the reporting data?

Keylime Tools is based in part of Google Webmaster Tools data. How is Keylime Tools different from logging into Google Webmaster Tools directly?

Keylime Tools aggregates and de-duplicates query data from all subfolders to provide substantially more query and visit detail than is available in Google Webmaster Tools directly. Keylime Tools also integrates Google Analytics data for greater combined insight. Keylime Tools stores historical data over time to provide long-term trends and also processes the data in a number of ways not available in the Google Webmaster Tools interface. You can view click through rates by query segment by position, trends of each SEO metric over time (also by query segment), and understand what topic areas perform best.

Is there a limit on the number of query segments?

There is no limit on the number of query segments. The right number of segments depends on your site’s topics and audiences. Too few segments and you won’t be able to see patterns. Too many segments and the data will be too granular.

Google Webmaster Tools seems to have a lag in reporting. How does Keylime Tools handle this?

Keylime Tools imports the most recent data available from Google Webmaster Tools each night. What you see in Keylime Tools is the latest data available from Google Webmaster Tools (which is typically about two days behind).

How are query segments created?

Keylime Tools segments queries to provide insights based on patterns.

Keylime Tools - Server Log Analysis

How does Keylime Tools access our server logs?

We provide instructions for uploading log files to a private Amazon Web Services bucket, which Keylime Tools then reads from. We recommend setting up a script that uploads log files daily or weekly.

Do we have to upload all server logs or will a sample from one server be sufficient?

We recommend providing full log files if possible. This enables us to do things such as provide diagnostics for indexing issues. For instance, if we find that some URLs are not indexed, we can determine if they’ve ever been crawled. And we can provide data such as how long it takes for a site to be completely re-crawled. And if the site is load balancing, having logs from all servers helps us find misconfiguration issues with a single server that may not be evident. However, if we have only sampled logs, Keylime Tools can still provide substantial information, such as canonicalization issues, server errors, problems with redirects (302s instead of 301s for instance).

We can’t provide you with our server logs because they contain customer data. Do we have any alternatives?

Keylime Tools processes search engine bot data only, so you can exclude all customer data before uploading the log files. Our instructions provide details of writing a script that parses out only the data we need before uploading.

Our log files are huge! Is there anything we can do to make them smaller before we upload them?

As noted above, Keylime Tools processes search engine bot data only, so you can exclude all customer data before uploading the log files. Our instructions provide details of writing a script that parses out only the data we need before uploading. That alone should make the files significantly smaller. In addition, you can set your script to upload the logs at any interval you’d like. Rather than uploading an entire week’s worth at once, you can upload daily or several times a day. You can also compress the files before uploading them.

How far behind does Keylime Tools report server log data?

Keylime Tools processes server log data each night, so by uploading daily, you’ll always see information from the previous day.

Keylime Tools - International Support

What countries and languages does Keylime Tools support?

While the user interface is currently in English-only, Keylime Tools supports all languages and character sets supported in Google Webmaster Tools. Note that since the Google Webmaster Tools API currently only provides data across all countries, the query data Keylime Tools provides is also not country-specific.